• Blogs
• Forums
• Tradeshows
• Partners
• White Papers
• Podcast Show Notes
• Events

NAB 2003 Pick Hit Awards

Jun 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Trevor Boyer

One of the better recent shows for breakthrough technology, NAB 2003 offered our judges a wealth of viable awards candidates.

NAB 2003 turned out to be one of the best for new technology innovations and price-point revelations in recent years. This ensured a wellspring of worthy products from which to Pick our Hits, but it didn't make our judges' jobs any easier: so much to cover, so little time.

Pick Hits are always awarded to real products — not demos — that are set to ship in the calendar year. This stipulation has traditionally shut out a few otherwise deserving products. This year, for instance, Panasonic turned heads at NAB with its solid-state recording camcorders based on SD memory cards. Very promising stuff, especially since the choice of media means that upload time is effectively eliminated. But because you won't be able to buy one of those camcorders by the end of 2003, Panasonic's products became ineligible. Many of our winners are available for purchase already; in fact, more than half of our winners will be shipping by the end of June. (For our complete judging criteria, please see the rules on p. 100.)

Sony PDW-510, PDR-530

Sony's new optical disc system, including the PDW-510 (DVCAM) and PDR-530 (IMX and DVCAM) camcorders, created some of the biggest buzz, and our judges felt the hype was well-deserved. The recording technology is new: A rewritable CD-sized optical disc receives information written by a blue laser, which carries more data than conventional red lasers. This yields a capacity of about 23.3GB per disc. But the selection of the cameras as Pick Hits has more to do with the new workflow than the recording technology. Sony appears to have eliminated a couple of time-consuming steps. First, a proxy video is recorded at the same time as essence media, so there's no need to create another during editing. The proxy video transfers to laptop editors or back to the studio at up to 30X realtime. Second, there's no need to archive to optical disc later. Availability: early fall. Price: $19,900 for PDW-510; $34,000 for PDR-530. (Park Ridge, N.J.; (800) 686-SONY; www.sony.com/professional)

Pinnacle Systems Liquid Chrome

Liquid Chrome combines three of Pinnacle Systems' hottest components: the Liquid version 5 editing application, the Targa 3000 compositing engine, and the K2 single-chip 3D DVE. Liquid is a powerful software package, but until now, InTime processors rendered effects and layers — and editors who preferred realtime effects or previews were left waiting through background renders. Now the Targa 3000 compositing engine handles four realtime video streams. Chrome features codecs for I-frame MPEG-2 up to 50Mbps, uncompressed, and DV25 formats. Availability: June. Price: $24,995 without storage. (Mountain View, Calif.; (650) 526-1600; www.pinnaclesys.com)

TV One C2-770

TV One calls its C2-770 scaler an “anything in, anything out” box, and our judges didn't accuse the company of baseless blustering. On the contrary, Pick Hits judge Pete Putman remarked, “I haven't seen all of these features in one chassis for such a low price before.” The C2-770 is a video scaler, upconverter, downconverter, and multi-format seamless switcher. It's also a worldwide standards converter, aspect ratio converter, chromakeyer, lumakeyer, PiP device, frame synchronizer, time base corrector, and universal image genlock. The 10 inputs and five outputs accommodate composite video, S-Video, YCbCr, YPbPr, SDI, all HDTV formats, and any RGBHV resolution up to 2048×2048, even custom ones. Availability: June. Price: $4,500. (Erlanger, Ky.; (859) 282-7303; www.tvone.com)

Serious Magic Ultra Key

Pick Hits judge Bob Turner says Serious Magic's new Ultra Key software features “the best inexpensive virtual sets ever offered.” Ultra Key's keying is made possible by a new algorithm called Adaptive 4-Space Vector Keying, which compensates for nightmares such as uneven lighting, wrinkled backdrops, and frizzy hair. But the most exciting aspect of this product is that it makes access to sophisticated virtual sets affordable. The stand-alone Windows app includes a library of pre-rendered virtual sets with a variety of camera angles and views. VirtualTrak technology inserts video reflections into scenes and simulates motion tracking with virtual camera moves — which normally requires complex camera-mount technology. Availability: June. Price: $795. (Rancho Cordova, Calif.; (916) 859-0100; www.seriousmagic.com)

Lighthouse Technologies LVS series

At NAB Lighthouse Technologies introduced a line of LED screens with plasma tendencies: better resolution thanks to lower pixel pitch. With tri-state LEDs, Lighthouse achieves a 6mm effective pixel pitch for its LVS series, which includes the LVS0608-70 (800 nits, 70in.), LVS0612-80 (1200 nits, 80in.), and LVS0620-56 (2000 nits, 56in.). The screens feature built-in processing, cable TV connectivity, and can be networked or stand alone. Availability: currently shipping. Price: $60,000-$140,000. (Cary, N.C.; (919) 677-1732; www.lighthouse-tech.com)

Avid Media Composer Adrenaline

Avid unleashed hardware-accelerated new software across its line. Media Composer Adrenaline stood out because of its price. You get what Avid boasts is the best Media Composer for about a third of the price of the previous flagship turnkey. Another reason it stands out is the hardware, which features programmable DSPs that accelerate many operations. As the hardware hooks up via FireWire, Avid says Adrenaline is the first MC system that can run on a laptop. Availability: end of second quarter. Price: $24,995. (Tewksbury, Mass.; (978) 640-3202; www.avid.com)

Adobe Encore DVD

Apple made a strong play by rebuilding its DVD Studio Pro, and Sonic Foundry's (now Sony's) Vegas+DVD won plenty of fans. But our judges determined Adobe Encore DVD as the most Pick Hit-worthy for DVD authoring. The simple reason: The long-awaited DVD authoring program features unrivalled integration with Photoshop and Illustrator. “Everybody makes menus in Photoshop,” says judge Jeff Sauer. Adobe has built much of the Photoshop engine into Encore DVD — with support for PSD layers — so you can create menus in Encore using its tools. But if you need to make changes and Photoshop is required, those changes are automatically updated to Encore. Timeline markers from Premiere and After Effects can be imported to serve as chapter points. Availability: third quarter. Price: $549. (San Jose, Calif.; (408) 536-6000; www.adobe.com)

Pioneer PRV-LX1

With the PRV-LX1, Pioneer brings professional, reliable DVD authoring to the non-author. The company has put hardware MPEG-2 encoding and DVD menu creation into a box that looks and feels like a VTR. The PRV-LX1 is designed to be intuitive, with simple menu creation and chapter-point setting. Video and audio can be recorded in realtime from multiple sources to DVD, to the PRV-LX1's hard disk, or to both simultaneously. A base unit is equipped with a DVD-R/RW drive and 120GB internal hard disk. Availability: June. Price: $3,995. (Long Beach, Calif.; (213) PIONEER; www.pioneerelectronics.com)

Medéa VideoRaid RT3

At NAB Medéa showed its VideoRaid RT3 array, which fits a terabyte of fast storage into a sleek desktop tower. Currently unique, this RAID array uses IDE drives but connects them as Ultra320 SCSI, which lets the RT3 move files at more than 140MBps sustained. And VideoRaid RT3 delivers on price, starting at $1,799 and under $3,000 for a terabyte. Designed for rich-media applications, a single five-drive RT3 supports 10-bit SD and 10-bit HD NLEs. Availability: June. Price: $2,999 for 1TB. (Westlake Village, Calif.; (888) BY-MEDEA; www.medea.com)

Communications Specialties Pure Digital Fiberlink

This optical distribution amplifier (DA) from Communications Specialties allows a facility to split and distribute up to four broadband digital signals from one source. The 8000 Series DA receives an optical signal from any Pure Digital Fiberlink transmitter, and digitally regenerates and relaunches it without degradation to the original signal. The fiber type and wavelength for the output channels are configured separately so each may be different. The channels can transmit to a Pure Digital Fiberlink receiver unit or to another 8000 or 8100 series DA. Availability: third quarter. Price: Starts at $2,000. (Hauppauge, N.Y.; (631) 273-1638; www.commspecial.com)

JVC JY-HD10U

How can a single-chip camcorder capture high-definition video? JVC's answer is the JY-HD10U, a 3lb. handheld cam-corder with a single 1/3in., 1.18-megapixel CCD that can capture interlace and progressive images. The JY-HD10 records in three modes: 4:3/true-16:9 NTSC DV, 16:9 SDTV (480p60) MPEG-2, and 16:9 HDTV (720p30) MPEG-2. All recording is on MiniDV tape, and MPEG-2 compression (with a short, six-frame GOP) keeps the transport stream to 19Mbps. JVC includes MPEG Edit Studio Pro 1.0 software from KDDI to edit the MPEG-2 material. Our judges believe the JY-HD10 offers an excellent glimpse of a viable HD workflow at any production level. Availability: June. Price: $3,995. (Wayne, N.J.; (973) 315-5000; www.jvc.com/pro)

Apple Final Cut Pro 4

This isn't your average software update. Apple added what might be considered standalone programs to Final Cut Pro 4. The price, of course, remains the same. There's a new loop-based music composition program called Soundtrack that matches tempo and key in realtime. Cinema Tools is now included for 24fps editing. A titling application called LiveType uses LiveFonts, in which every character of a font is a separate animated movie. LiveType includes more than 8GB of media. Besides these applets, Final Cut Pro 4 has a new render engine that uses precision floating point color (32 bits per channel) for high-quality image output. Availability: June. Price: $999; $399 to upgrade. (Cupertino, Calif.; (408) 996-1010; www.apple.com)

Laird Telemedia LTM-DV4X1 FireCut

The LTM-DV4X1 FireCut from Laird Telemedia gets the nod because of its “first-of-its-kind” status. Before Laird invented this 1/2 RU box, there was no DV vertical interval switcher on the market. The four-input FireCut allows live switching among IEEE 1394 devices such as VTRs, cameras, or NLEs. The product locks and switches any of the four sources via front-panel push buttons. Powered by 12V DC, it can be used on location. Availability: currently shipping. Price: $995. (Mount Marion, N.Y.; (845) 339-9555; www.lairdtelemedia.com)

Discreet Cleaner XL

In designing the latest release of Cleaner, Discreet split the code base into Mac and PC versions and rewrote the Windows version entirely. The result: Cleaner XL grows up from a powerful compression utility into an integrated tool for batch encoding. Cleaner now exploits Intel's hyper-threading technology and supports multiple-processor platforms and network rendering. These changes and the rewrite help make the XL version significantly faster than the previous version. Discreet has also eliminated many redundant processes. Cleaner XL adds MPEG-4 (with or without AC-3 embedded audio) to its long list of output formats. Availability: currently shipping. Price: $599. (Montreal; (514) 393-1616; www.discreet.com)

Blackmagic Design DeckLink Pro

DeckLink Pro from Blackmagic Design is a “highest-quality” 10-bit (and 8-bit) uncompressed video I/O card for Macs and PCs featuring realtime QuickTime effects. Our judges considered it a steal for the price. The card features true 10-bit SDI connections and built-in video genlock. A built-in DV Bridge allows instant playback of DV timelines. Any professional video monitor can be connected to DeckLink Pro's SDI or analog YUV video outputs. DeckLink Pro is affordable enough to be used for simple video monitoring when the deck is not available, or when working with non-SDI-based FireWire DV decks. Availability: currently shipping. Price: $1,295. (South Melbourne, Australia; +61 (3) 9682 4770; www.blackmagic-design.com)

Powerful Peripheral

With a look that screams “futuristic,” i-Glasses HRV from i-O Display Systems is a head-mounted personal display device that offers video resolution higher than standard NTSC. The company says the glasses create the illusion of a 55in. screen floating in front of the viewer. The obvious application for the glasses is as a viewfinder when holding a camera in a position that makes a traditional viewfinder use inconvenient or impossible. But judge Bob Turner is excited about i-Glasses HRV because it can be used with a laptop editor. The glasses don't seem to cause the headaches or fatigue previous monitor glasses have triggered. Availability: currently shipping. Price: $699. (Sacramento, Calif.; (650) 323-8407; www.i-glasses.com)

---

The Rules

Video Systems Pick Hit judges operate anonymously. Each year they look for new products that meet the following criteria:

• Products must be new and not shown at a previous NAB convention. In some cases, distinguishing a new product from a modified, older one is difficult. For Pick Hits purposes, a new product is one with a new model number or designation.

• Products must have some positive impact on the intended user's everyday work. Judges are asked to search for equipment to be used on a regular basis. Products should provide new solutions to common problems.

• Products must offer substantial improvement over previous technology. Unique circuit architecture need not apply. Some new approach or application must be involved in the design.

• Products' prices must be within reach of their intended users, and the products must be appropriate for use in a wide range of facilities.

• The products must be available for purchase within the calendar year 2003. Equipment must be on display on the showfloor and currently (or imminently) in production. We must take the exhibitor's word on availability dates in some cases, but we confirm intended ship dates in all cases. Products demonstrated in private showings do not qualify.

---

The Judges

Dan Ochiva, senior technology editor, Video Systems

Trevor Boyer, senior associate editor, Video Systems

Pete Putman, owner, ROAM Consulting, Doylestown, Pa.

Bob Turner, NLE system consultant and editor, Scituate, Mass.

Jeff Sauer, director, Desktop Video Group, Cambridge, Mass.

Bob Bergfeld, president, Presentation Systems Design, Valley Park, Mo.

David Leitner, filmmaker, New York

---

feedback

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorial staff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.

Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
© 2012 NewBay Media, LLC.